Inchcolm Island Sit-in

For Sunday’s jaunt, I had decided that I wanted to go on the Maid of the Forth cruise, with an hour and a half stop on Inchcolm Island.  The weatherman had promised sun and relatively warm temperatures.  He lied.  Though I have to admit it wasn’t nearly so bad as the night before.  I had also intended to catch the 10:15 boat tour, but between the weather, the homework and trying to figure out how to get there, it just was not going to happen.   I had intended doing a couple of other tours that day, which was why the early start.  They were similar to the others I had already done, so I settled with putting off the tour until the next departure, did some homework and cursed the weatherman until I had to leave.

Waverley Station and the bus terminal are side by side and I could take either mode of transport.  Getting up there was easy enough – I’m pretty okay with the bus now, though knowing that I have to get off at such and such stop isn’t really helpful when you don’t know where the stop is, the one previous or the one after.  Anyway, got the bus, got the right stop, got to the train station and decided that I had pushed my directional luck as far as it would go.  Dump the bus, take the train.  To Dalmeny Villlage.  The train, unlike the bus, kindly lets you know the next stop before you get there.

I arrive at the village safely.  I am told by the brochure to take the foot path to Hawes Pier.  As there appears to be only one footpath, I set off and immediately run out of that directional luck I was talking about.  Eventually, I do manage to get to the pier and in time for the departure I wanted.  Fortunately the ticket people understand sign language because talking was out of the question for the immediate future.  No wind.

Inchcolm Abbey

I sit topside, outside and manage not to toss a bunch of rude and yappy German students overboard.  Score one for my patience level.  We make Inchcolm Island where there is an old and partially ruined Abbey that was built in 1285.  Much of it is in excellent condition, though and it’s possible to climb into the tower and go through the various rooms.  It really is an amazing place.  I find it difficult to believe it was a “men only” place.  At one time and another, it had been extensively renovated – rooms added, windows closed in, etc.  Usually, it’s the female sex who prompts the renos in any household.

Gull Chicks and Mum

The island is also home to enough gulls for Alfred Hitchcock’s movie The Birds, as well as cormorants, puffins and myriad others.  The gulls are nesting at the moment and a tad cranky.  I had gone down to sit at water’s edge while waiting for the boat and a mama gull set up the warning call for her chick.  I sat, she sat, the chick sat.  Soon enough, another chick poked along, so it joined the sit-in as well.  The boat arrived and I re-boarded, again sitting topside, long enough to catch a few shots of some seals plopped on a large green channel buoy.  One waved on the way by.

Grey Seals on the River Forth